Engagement

Open Source Business Alliance

In March 2005, IT providers, IT users and academic partners joined forces in order to establish the increased employment of Linux and Open Source software in companies. The Open Source Business Alliance initiates projects concerning current, market-relevant Open Source issues, in which members and interested parties work together to develop solutions. In addition, the OSB Alliance also offers a networking platform for projects, partners and interested parties.

Swiss Open Systems User Group (/ch/open)

The aim of the Swiss Open Systems User Group (/ch/open) was founded as early as 1982 with the vision of promoting the use of open systems. The focus at that time was on the dissemination of expertise in the UNIX environment. Today it is primarily viewed as a promoter of the use of free and open systems and standards.

Open Invention Network (OIN)

The aim of the Open Invention Network industry consortium is to create a collection of patents, which are only available to such companies and persons who undertake not to enforce their own patent rights against Linux and associated other developments. Members of the OIN can then use patented Linux-relevant technologies without paying licence fees. As many of the patents held by the OIN are of fundamental importance to the IT industry, this patent collection reduces the possibility of implementing legal proceedings against Linux.

Free Software Foundation Europe

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit-making organization dedicated to free software. Its aim to promote cooperation across cultural borders and develop a common culture of cooperation from regional up to global level. With the free software community growing faster every day, it is becoming ever more important to keep the vision of free software healthy, stable and alive.

Debconf

The Debconf (Debian Conference) is an annual conference at which the developers of the Debian operating system come together to discuss the further development of the system. In addition to speeches and workshops, the so-called Debcamp is held prior to the actual Debconf, giving the Debian developers and Debian teams the chance to meet and work on projects together.

Debian Long Term Support (LTS)

Univention is supporting the Debian Long Term Support (LTS) now also as silver sponsor. The Debian LTS team is an active association of voluntary supporters from the open source community since around June 2014 which takes care of the removal of security gaps in Debian releases that are not any more actively supported by Debian. From the beginning, some of our employees have been involved in this project, since October 2015 we are also supporting it as a sponsor.

What do we appreciate about the Debian Long Term Support?

The community of Debian developers is by nature primarily focussed on the development of new Debian releases and takes also care of the detection and removal of security gaps in all of the current, stable Debian releases. This is why older releases had not been supported prior to the foundation of the Debian LTS. By nature and as part of the regular product maintenance process, Univention has also always been removing security gaps in older Debian releases. In this respect it made sense to pool workforces within the Open Source community in order to be able to react to known security problems in time and with competence. The Debian LTS thus guarantees the operational safety of productively used server systems that cannot be updated quickly.

What are the advantages for our users?

UCS customers can thus not only rely on the manpower and the know-how of Univention but also on the know-how of active members of the Open Source community. This not only takes account of the primary focus of the Debian project but also of the requirements of established IT infrastructures.

To the contact form